A statement released by the Steam Packet following a report by the United Kingdom's Marine Accident Investigation Branch into the Heysham gangway collapse, in March this year, says lessons have been learned.

However, it doesn't directly acknowledge a number of points made in the report, such as the breakdown in communication between bridge and engineering crew on the Ben-my-Chree, or the fact some company policies were ignored.

The statement says: 'The MAIB report identifies that a number of individual factors contributed to the incident taking place, and that no single factor in isolation was significant'.

There is also the promise changes have now been made to the Steam Packet's operational procedures, including not running the engines when people are embarking or disembarking from the vessel.

A gap of at least 24 hours between a service and the vessel resuming its schedule has also been established, so it can be thoroughly checked over.